Five Al Jazeera journalists, including prominent reporter Anas al-Sharif, have been killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, the broadcaster has announced. The five were in a tent designated for journalists at the hospital’s main gate when the strike occurred.
In addition to al-Sharif, those killed were correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, and cameramen Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa.
Al Jazeera condemned the event as a “targeted assassination” and “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the strike, alleging that al-Sharif “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas” and “advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops.” However, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) stated that Israel has failed to provide evidence for these claims.
“This is a pattern we’ve seen from Israel – not just in the current war, but in the decades preceding – in which typically a journalist will be killed by Israeli forces and then Israel will say after the fact that they are a terrorist, but provides very little evidence to back up those claims,” CPJ’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg told our reporter.
Al Jazeera’s managing editor, Mohamed Moawad, told Vivid Voice News that al-Sharif was an accredited journalist who was “the only voice” for the world to know what was happening in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli government has not allowed international journalists to report freely from Gaza during the war, making local reporters crucial for news coverage. Moawad emphasized that the journalists were targeted in their tent, not on the front line.
“The fact is that the Israeli government is wanting to silence the coverage of any channel of reporting from inside Gaza,” he told The Newsroom program. “This is something that I haven’t seen before in modern history.”
Al-Sharif, 28, had been posting on X about intense Israeli bombardment just before his death. A post that appeared after his reported death was published by a friend and was reportedly pre-written.
In graphic videos verified by BBC Verify, men were seen carrying the bodies of the victims. A man wearing a media vest identified one of the bodies as al-Sharif’s. Al Jazeera initially reported four deaths but revised the number to five a few hours later, noting that a total of seven people died in the strike.
This is not the first time the IDF has targeted and killed Al Jazeera journalists, alleging Hamas affiliation. In a similar incident last August, Ismael Al-Ghoul was killed in an air strike.
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The CPJ has confirmed that 186 journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s military offensive in October 2023. For journalists still in Gaza, conditions are dire, with the threat of starvation adding to the dangers of air strikes.
The BBC and three news agencies—Reuters, AP, and AFP—have issued a joint statement expressing “desperate concern” for journalists in the region who are struggling to find food for themselves and their families.
The Israeli offensive began in response to the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 people and the taking of 251 hostages.
Since the start of the military operation, more than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
